William Kirtley

William Kirtley (1840–1919) was a British locomotive engineer who served as Locomotive Superintendent of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway from 1874 until 1898 — one of the longest tenures on any Victorian British railway — providing the financially struggling LCDR with a competent locomotive fleet during the railway's difficult years of competition with the South Eastern Railway for the Kent and Continental traffic.

Born at Tanfield, County Durham on 29 December 1840, William Kirtley was the nephew of Matthew Kirtley of the Midland Railway and served his apprenticeship under his uncle at Derby Works before joining the London, Chatham and Dover Railway. His family connection to one of the most respected names in British locomotive engineering gave him a sound technical foundation, and his twenty-four years at the LCDR's Longhedge Works at Battersea made him one of the more durable senior engineers of the Victorian era.

The LCDR's chronic financial difficulties — the railway was notorious for its impecunious condition throughout the mid-Victorian period — constrained Kirtley's locomotive programme, but he produced the M3 class 4-4-0 of 1891 for the Continental boat train workings that proved a capable and long-lived express engine. His R class 0-6-0 goods and various tank engine types served the LCDR's freight and suburban requirements adequately through his tenure. When the LCDR and South Eastern Railway formed the South Eastern and Chatham Railway working committee in 1898, Kirtley's independent post was abolished and he retired. He died in London on 4 September 1919.